Platinum Member

Many had the theory, that Kaby-G was for Apple, but I was very skeptical of this and now we have new Macbook pros, and none of them use Kaby-G.

I have questioned from the beginning if Kaby-G is really just a publicity stunt for EMIB and Intels new era of "cooperation".

When you join two products a package, you run into the problem, that to sell it, you really have to make sure that is the exact combination people actually want to buy, and that it is more cost effective than buying separate products.

Lifer

Is there any information about what kind of protocol the cpu and gpu talk to each other ?
Has the gpu just a standard pcie3.0 x8 or x16 connection to the cpu ? That makes the most sense to me because Intel does not talk infinity fabric and it does not make sense to make an EMIB chip that connects the gpu and cpu and translates scalabe data fabric and infinity protocol to for example Quickpath interconnect.

Golden Member

It is pretty power efficient. The current 15" shares the same heatpipes with the CPU and dGPU.

My biggest problem with Apple Macbooks is their very poor thermal paste application which results in extremely high temps. That coupled with the ludicrous 100C fan curve makes an out of the box experience rather lackluster. I like my Macs cool AND quiet under load which requires opening the sucker up.

I definitively prefer 12 threads over 8, but I wouldn't mind the choice!

Lifer

It could be that Intel made it to show Apple that they can make products like that, not necessarily that Apple commissioned it (and so Apple wouldn't have had time to prepare it as a package). Or it could be that Apple requested it, but that it ended up not meeting their expectations so they decided not to use it. And maybe its a mix of both, Apple has requested such a product, but that they knew it wouldn't be viable yet, so they had no plans on using Kaby-G, but Intel still made it so that they could get some experience with the packaging, and then the version Apple is intending to use is a 7nm GPU. I've wondered for some time if this isn't a product aimed at either a new device, or significantly changing one of their already existing ones (possibly multiple ones, thinking iMac-non Pro, Mac Mini, and/or the lower level Macbook; ones where they deliberately are wanting to minimize having a separate packaged dGPU but want more GPU power).

The most likely one I think is that its Intel trying to take initiative by making a product that they think Apple would want, with Intel planning on putting their own dGPU in there at a later time.